Test Chamber Mediapolis: A new media publishing platform for students will seek for new megahits and enter new frontiers


This spring, the TAMK students of the Mediapolis campus have been creating something entirely new. Mediapolis, as many already know, is a media campus in Tampere, Finland, where the creative industries and technology are combined. The Tampere University of Applied Sciences students, together with the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE and media entrepreneurs have incubated a crossmedia publishing platform called Test Chamber Mediapolis. (www.testchamber.fi).

Test Chamber Mediapolis is a place where brave new programming ideas generated by TAMK students can be published. The Test Chamber has been optimized for today's changing media environment, where the traditional rules of television programmin and film making will be challenged and jumped over.

The Test Chamber Mediapolis (or TCMP) got started from a known need: Traditional television programming has become less than interesting for part of the viewers. There have been several hits in YouTube series, but almost none of these have been developed with traditional television formatting rules. If a show is interesting and popular, these qualities cannot always be measured by traditional production values or long-winded content development. A new hit show can be made by anybody these days, anywhere, and within a small time frame. If the show is unique and authentic, that's the most important thing.

The new publishing platform is now ready to receive all the new ideas by the TAMK students, even the most outrageous ones, which will be published as demo or sizzle reels. Right now, TCMP contains Internet pages, its own YouTube channel, Facebook and Instagram. Demo reels can be produced by any possible means: smartphones, gopro cameras, security cameras... If the show is still in the idea stage, the maintainer of the platform, the students' own coop MediataideM can make the demo reel.